


Deep Dark Waters

by Masu_Trout



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, S.S. Anne, Sea Monsters, ToT: Monster Mash, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-26 23:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12569076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: They paralyze prey with poison, then drag them down to their lairs, five miles below the surface.Some nights, the sailors stay belowdecks.





	Deep Dark Waters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosencrantz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/gifts).



Nights on the S.S Anne are hardly ever quiet. A luxury cruise ship draws a certain kind of passenger, and it’s rare not to hear the sound of parties or pokémon battles echoing across the deck until three or four in the morning. It’s something you get used to, same as any other part of living on a ship—just last week, Maxwell slept through a dragonair bursting through the wall of his cabin.

Tonight, though… tonight everything is is silent. The bar is empty, the arenas are devoid of trainers, the pool has been completely abandoned. Even the wingull stopped pecking for scraps of food when the sun went down—he doesn’t know where they’ve flown off to, but their absence feels even stranger than the lack of people. It isn’t really the S.S. Anne without flocks of them underfoot wherever he walks.

Max pauses for a moment, leaning against the handle of his mop as he stares out over the deck of the ship. Nothing out of the ordinary, except—are the bulbs around the pool in need of changing? Even the light feels dimmer and colder tonight.

“Max.”

Max yelps in surprise, hands flying to his poké balls. It could be a ghost or a pirate or—

Or it could be the third mate, standing at the edge of a patch of light with an unamused expression on her face. 

“Oh! S-sorry, Ma’am.” Discipline aboard the S.S Anne normally isn’t _too_ strictly enforced, them being a cruise ship and all that, but right now Marianne doesn’t look at all like the sort of person he wants to risk offending.

She doesn’t acknowledge the apology at all, just turns to look out at the waves. “Why are you outside?”

“I… um?” Max swallows. “Cleaning? It’s my night on duty?” He waves the mop about a bit, wishing his words would come out a little bit less like questions.

“You”—she glances toward him for a moment, and then her anger seems to slide away as she sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose. “You didn’t check the assignment board, did you.”

It's not really a question. Sure, you're _supposed_ to check the board before you head out, but everyone always knows what's coming up next onboard the ship and anyway Max had been running _really_ late to his shift—he’d barely rolled out of bed in time to stumble into his clothes and onto the deck. 

“Sorry,” he says.

She only sighs. “Well, at least I caught you now. Head on below. No one’s on shift tonight.”

“What? _Why_?”

Marianne raised an eyebrow. “Are you _really_ questioning a night off?”

“I mean…” He's being stupid, he knows it. By now he could be halfway back to his cabin. There's a reheatable pizza in the back of his minifreezer with him and his pokémon's names on it and a few VHS tapes he can borrow from the rec room. Him and his team can make a night of it.

But. The light was too dim and the waves were too quiet and the wingull had all flown away.

“What’s going on, Ma’m? Honestly.”

For a long moment she stays silent, chewing on her lip and staring out the distant horizon. Finally, she says, “You know I could order you below deck, right?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he says immediately. If it comes to it, she can simply pick him up and deposit him belowdecks—her Machamp is terrifyingly strong.

“Hm.” Her frown deepens until he thinks it might split her face, and then she steps away from the circle of light and into the shadows that ring the edges of the S.S. Anne’s deck. The last thing he sees of her is one pale hand beckoning him to follow.

Max picks his way through the dark. Each step feels precarious, though the boards underneath him are as solid as they ever were. After what could have been seconds or hours, he rounds the turn towards the prow of the ship and stops short.

Marianne stands there, hands on the railing and face turned down towards the waters far below. It's not too dark to see anymore—in fact, her silhouette is ringed by a halo of strange watery light.

It's coming from below, he realizes. There's something in the ocean.

“I shouldn't be showing you this,” she says as he makes his way over to stand beside her, “but… it's hard, once you know there's _something_ , to go away without finding out what it is. Right?”

Max nods. He grabs tight hold of the rails and—slowly, as if he might be pitched in—leans over to look at the mass of water below.

His first thought is _stars_. Bright little lights cut throught the inky darkness beneath them, bobbing up and down with the movement of the waves. Pink and blue and pink and blue… it's like an army of lost beach balls or half-deflated balloons. He tries to count them, but he loses track before he gets to a dozen. 

There must be thousands. Maybe more. It's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He wants to lean in closer, to dive over the edge and go swimming among those constellations of glistening lights—

A sharp tug on the collar of his shirt pulls him back to reality and away from the edge. “What?” he gasps. “What—what _is_ that?”

He would have jumped. Another moment and he would have jumped.

“Look closer,” Marianne says. “You should recognize them. We've got a class on them in the naval safety training course.”

The last thing he wants to do is look at those (glorious) lights again, but, safe in the feeling of Marianne's hand still clenched around his uniform top, he peers down once more.

This time he sees the tentacles. A waving, undulating spread underneath the bobbing tops. Their faces look childishly gleeful. They seem almost to be smiling. 

(In his head, Max hears the echo of their call. _Look at us, look at us…_ )

“Oh,” he breathes. He'd never really thought he'd see a frillish in real life, and now all of a sudden he's seen… well, a whole lot more than one, that's for sure. They sure do live up to the legends.

Marianne drags him backwards, depositing him once more on the solid deck. “Go back below. And don't tell anyone else.” She scowls. “The way these trainers are, we'd have half a dozen out on the decks trying to catch themselves one.

…That much is true enough. Their customers don't seem to have too much in the way of self-preservation skills.

Max pulls himself up and nods until he feels like a broken bobblehead. He's more than happy to take his night off now that he's felt that. (He's going to have nightmares. He's sure of it.)

Still. He pauses a moment, looking back at Marianne. “Aren't you coming below?” he asks. “It can't be safe for you either.”

Briefly, outlined by the light of the frillish beneath them, he sees her smile. “Don't worry about me. Someone has to keep patrol. It's more important than ever on nights like this.”

“Sure,” he says, uneasy, “but…” 

“Don't worry.” She turns back towards the water, then, so all he can see is the outline of her form leaning against the rail. “I haven't been tempted to join them for a long while now.”

That's that, he supposes. He's outranked and so keyed-up he might just jump out of his skin. It's not his place to argue with her.

With one last glance over his shoulder, Max heads back for the safety of the S.S Anne, leaving Marianne to watch the ghostly glow dance across the waves.


End file.
